Llifogydd

Yr wythnos hon wedi gweld llifogydd ar draws llawer o ardaloedd yn y DU - gweler y lluniau yn y dolenni isod. Adroddodd Ysgol Stepaside lifogydd yn uchel mewn sawl ardal.

Rwy'n amau y bydd rhai ysgolion ar gau heddiw ac efallai ddim yn gallu danfon eu cofnodion. Wyf yn gobeithio y bydd pawb yn ddiogel ac yn sych.

Yn fy ngardd cawsom 30mm o law ddydd Mercher ac roedd rhaid i mi achub broga a oedd yn hopian ar hyd ffordd brysur ar fy ffordd adref! Adroddodd Ysgol Harwell 15mm o law a Ysgol Rhydypenau yng Nghaerdydd a Ysdol Balmerino tu allan i Dundee 30mm o law!

  • Cymru - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20458267
  • Yr Alban - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20439824
  • Lloegr - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-20441316

Wythnos diwethaf roedd 57 o ysgolion wedi danfon eu cofnodi tywydd - diolch yn fawr i chi gyd!

Astudiwch y cofnodion. Os hoffech gweld faint o law mae pawb wedi cael, dilynwch y ddolen hon ac yna dewiswch yr ysgol yr hoffech ei astudio. Gwnwech yn siwr bod eich cofnodion yn cael eu dangos yn gywir a gadewch i mi wybod os oes unrhyw broblemau.

Eich cwestiynau, fy atebion:

RAF Benson Primary School: We would like to send our records on a Thursday as it is the evening of our gardening club. Prof.P: No problem, doing it like this, but as the web site is set-up to only allow you to send in a week of weather at a time, you will only be able to upload the weather from the week before. Thanks.

Medlar with Wesham CE Primary School: Why aren't our bulbs growing yet we are impatient. Prof.P: they will be growing - but under the ground. Ask your teacher if you could grow one of your spare bulbs in a clear gel so you can watch the roots growing, but you must be patient. If they grew above the soil now they could be harmed by the winter frost.

Ysgol Porth Y Felin: We are interested by the fact that all the temperatures are nearly the same and it only rained on Monday. Prof.P: My temperatures have been fairly similar too, temperature wise it is very mild at the moment. Test if your thermometer definitely working properly?

Westwood CP School: Cold day on Friday! We had a little shower. That is the 1mm of rainfall. Prof.P: great accurate recording Westwood!

Diolch yn fawr

Athro'r Ardd

Experiencing Volunteering at St Fagans as part of the Our Museum Project

5th November saw the Our Museum Project Partners arrive at St Fagans to experience a day in the life of a volunteer at the museum. Luck was on our side, the weather was with us and we were all ready for a fantastic day.

The St Fagans Our Museum project has been going from strength to strength. The Initiative is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and aims at bringing museums and communities together. The St Fagans project hopes to do this by building a community of volunteers at the museum.

Over the past year the museum has been working with a dedicated group of Community Partners who are supporting us on the project. They have been involved in decision making every step of the way and are now fully embedded into the Our Museum initiative and the project at St Fagans.

To give the Community Partners a better sense of what it is like to volunteer at the museum, we felt that a day spent on site, carrying out different activities alongside staff would work well. So, we set about preparing an action packed day!

Everyone was extremely keen and it was felt that this would be a great way of getting to know each other in an informal setting.

So, the morning of 5th November saw us all trekking up to the Castel Garden’s where we spent a busy morning digging up the old rose bed in preparation for re planting with Peter and Gareth from the Gardening Team. The sun was shining and we all had a fantastic time. Everyone entered into the competitive spirit as we were split into two groups to dig the patch, the aim being to meet in the middle.

After a fascinating talk from Owain Rhys on the recent Refugee House project we enjoyed a delicious lunch before venturing out on site again with Ian Daniel, Steve Burrow and Janet Wilding. Up to the Celtic Village for an afternoon of clay making, daubing and copper beating.

We all really enjoyed the activities and got thoroughly muddy in the process. Through discussions with staff the Community Partners were able to see how the Our Museum Project will fit into the exciting re development of St Fagans.

Thank you to everyone involved for making the day such a great success! Hats off to the volunteers!

Last chance for Animal & Plant Games

Last chance to have a go at the Animal and Plants Games Trail

The Animal and Plants Games Trail is in its last remaining weeks at National Museum Cardiff. Look for the Cheetah coin symbol in our Lower and Upper Natural History galleries, Evolution of Wales, Natural World and Origins galleries to follow it.

You can also follow the trail by picking up one of the colourful Animal and Plant Games leaflets. They can be found on a stand near the entrance to the Evolution of Wales gallery, near the top of the stairs to the restaurant. Alternatively, you can ask in the Clore Discovery Centre.

But hurry, the trail will be taken down in the New Year and the leaflets are running out fast!

Animals and plants have to compete every day to survive. Strength, size, speed and agility can all help give them an advantage over competitors. Along the trail you can discover specimens of record breaking plants and animals such as: the famously fast Cheetah, the small but strong Dung Beetle, deadly Rosary Peas and record breaking cones from the Big Cone Pine!

Describing new worms

Marine scientist Teresa Darbyshire has just re-discribed a new species of Polychaete (commonly called marine bristleworms).  Unfortunately, a recent description of the new species, Dysponetus joeli (Olivier et al. 2012) used damaged specimens and errors were made.
 
This is because Polychaetes react notoriously badly to being handled roughly which is usually unavoidable with large marine surveys. Collected specimens are often in very bad condition by the time they are identified.
 
However, hand collected specimens by Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales from survey work done in 2009 in the Isles of Scilly were found to be the same species but in very good condition.
 
Using these specimens and comparing them with the original specimens from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle Paris, enabled the errors to be corrected. 
 
A re-description and revised species key have now been published - http://goo.gl/uAUqM.

A new species of fly for Britain

A species of fly new to Britain has been found from the Wye Valley by scientist Adrian Plant, working at Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales. Platypalpus nigricoxa is thought to be a boreo-alpine relict (left behind when ice retreated at the end of the last glacial period). Apart from the Wye valley, it is only known from the extreme north of Scandinavia, the Kola peninsula in northern Russia and some mountains in eastern Europe.